Something Wicked
by ThornedHuntress
Summary: When Hogwarts falls under attack, it is the resident Charms Apprentice who must save the castle, with the help of a certain snarky Potions Master.
1. Sleep No More

**A/N: Hello all! This story was originally written for the Winter 2014 round of the SSHG Promptfest on LJ. It is, therefore, complete, so I'll actually be prompt about posting! As usual, I own no part of the Harry Potter franchise and make no money with this posting. Enjoy!**

* * *

"Really, Miss Granger, don't be ridiculous. It simply isn't safe to be at Hogwarts any longer." The iron-haired headmistress's brogue had grown thicker as she argued with the young woman standing stubbornly before her in the Entry Hall, but her words showed little effect despite the fact. Hermione Granger remained as steadfast in this moment as she had proven to be in weeks past, her gaze filled with a steely determination.

"I really must insist, Miss Granger – " the diminutive Charms Master cajoled in an effort to convince his favoured apprentice, only to be cut off by the very same person.

"Headmistress, Professor Flitwick, all due respect, I understand your concern, but I truly believe it's important that I stay here. There must be something that can be done!"

The scene unfolding just inside the heavy doors of Hogwarts was growing to be a familiar one, the stubborn gaze of the resident Charms apprentice meeting those pleading ones of her colleagues. This time though, there was no one left to witness the drama, the sea of concerned faces having dwindled down to only these two.

"Miss Granger, I certainly never would have expected this sort of irrational behaviour from you. Mr. Potter or Mr. Weasley almost certainly, but never you." Professor McGonagall's increasingly shrill observation was punctuated by a disapproving sniff, but was met only with a glare full of silent determination from her Gryffindor protégé.

After a moment of increasingly chilly silence, Flitwick threw up his arms in frustrated capitulation. "Very well," he muttered, obviously quite put out with his student. "Though I can't imagine what your parents would have to say about your preposterous obstinacy."

Hermione bristled visibly, her eyes flashing and her tone frosty as she replied, "I frankly don't see what the opinion of my parents has to do with this exact situation. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must get back to work. Have a pleasant journey, professors."

Before either of the elderly professors could get another word in, the young apprentice whirled on her heel, readjusting her heavy bag over her shoulder and setting off back in the direction she had originally intended.

Ordinarily, Hermione likely would have apologized; she genuinely did like her former professors, despite their tendency to behave as if she were still a wayward child. But quite frankly, she was tired of having to explain herself at length over and over again.

First, the Ministry official who had brought notice to Hogwarts, then Hagrid, and then and entire litany of other professors had tried to persuade her to leave the castle for the sake of her personal safety. They simply didn't understand the lengths she would go to protect the draughty old castle that was Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

When Harry's letter had arrived nearly six weeks earlier, the very same day the decision had been made to send the students home, Hermione hadn't wanted to believe the information it contained. But really, who better than the Deputy Head of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement to be aware of the inner machinations of the Ministry?

It had been right there in black and white, in Harry's abysmal handwriting, that the Ministry of Magic had no intention of restoring Hogwarts a second time. Harry claimed, and here his writing had wavered slightly, as if affected by emotion, that he had heard directly from the Minister himself that no one from the Ministry would be coming to the aid of Hogwarts this time, not again.

Hermione had nearly snorted aloud at that section of her friend's missive; she was personally hard pressed to recall any occasion previously that the Ministry had aided the school, certainly not enough to warrant such an emphatic _again_.

Ministry dramatics aside, the message of Harry's letter, and more recently the articles in the _Daily Prophet_, had been clear enough. The saving of an ancient school building was not on the official agenda, not when "another could just as easily be built". It had been the very end of Harry's letter, however, that had cemented Hermione's will to stay.

_I really can't imagine never seeing Hogwarts again, Hermione, _it had read. _After so long, I can't believe everyone is just giving up. It's just hard to picture, you know? Anyways, stay safe. The professors should be hearing from Ministry officials soon. Oh, and Ginny sends her love. – Harry_

There was the thing. She hadn't spent nearly three years helping to restore Hogwarts to its former glory only to give up just when it was finally finished. The eccentric, rambling old building had become more of a home to her in ten years than her lonely flat in London ever would be. And so, despite the insistence of those she regarded so highly as teachers and mentors, she had stayed, confident a solution would be found.

Well, honestly, confident she would find a solution, as she was very shortly to be the only person left in the castle to seek one. But that solution wasn't going to just appear from thin air, and so it was back to the library for Hermione Granger, so lost in thought that the conversation occurring behind her escaped her notice entirely.

* * *

"Really, Filius?" The headmistress scolded. "Her estranged parents? That was really the best defence you could manage?"

The man grimaced as he watched the girl leave. "I didn't see you providing a better solution, Minerva," he said, his brow twitching irritably. "I'm not sure why you thought she might listen this time. Potter was a terrible influence on that girl, you know."

Professor McGonagall could do nothing more than snort delicately at that particular observation; the man did after all have a point. The pair stood in silence for a moment, listening to the distinct clack of the former Gryffindor's shoes still echoing down the corridor.

"Well," McGonagall sighed as quiet finally fell in the Hall. "At least she won't be here entirely alone."

Flitwick's brow wrinkled as scepticism flitted across his expression. "I'm really not certain we can count that as a positive thing. She certainly won't."

"And undoubtedly neither will he," the headmistress replied smartly. "But if there were ever two people who were stubborn enough to salvage Hogwarts and survive this, it will be those two."

"If they don't manage to kill each other first," Flitwick muttered under his breath.

Professor McGonagall scowled and bent to pick up her large tartan valise. "Don't be ridiculous, Filius. If Severus and Hermione don't both come out of this alive and well, I'll eat the Sorting Hat."

With that, she swept through the doors of Hogwarts, leaving the chuckling Charms Master to follow behind her.

* * *

Hermione strode quickly down the corridor that would lead her back to the library, her mind whirling as her thoughts shifted from the departure of the last of the professors back to her research. She was rather quickly running out of books to search, the Hogwarts library, though she was loath to admit it, was woefully remiss when it came to providing information about Dark Magic. Not that she could blame Madam Pince; it wouldn't do at all for students to be–

Her thoughts were interrupted abruptly as she rounded a corner on the second floor and ran directly into a large, black pillar. "Professor Snape!" she exclaimed, her eyes going wide. The man remained silent, one dark brow rising into a familiar sneer as he stared pointedly down at her for a long moment.

Hermione gasped in awareness and stumbled backwards a few steps as she released the hold she had taken on the professor's robes in an effort not to fall. "I'm so sorry, professor, I didn't see you there." Her babbling apology slowed as full realization set in and concern filled her mind.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, fighting to keep the worry out of her voice, having learned long ago that that particular sentiment was not one Severus Snape appreciated from anyone. "You were supposed to have evacuated already."

"As were you, I'm sure, Miss Granger," he replied dryly. "But clearly I'm not to be so fortunate today."

Hermione bristled, drawing herself up to her full height, still almost a foot shorter than her opponent, and challenging, "Does the headmistress know you're still here? I can't imagine she would approve, the Ministry has said it isn't safe!"

The Potions Master's gaze darkened with displeasure, his voice an icy baritone as he hissed, "I can hardly imagine how that's any of your concern, despite your considerable need to know everything. As it is none of my concern whatsoever if Minerva has decided to harass me by allowing her precious Gryffindor Golden Girl to wander these halls. Now if you'll excuse me." The dark man swept past her and around the corner before Hermione could even begin to parry his verbal attack.

Her ire raised, her hand twitched near her wand, the momentary urge to send a hex after the man almost too strong to ignore. She hadn't believed it would ever be possible, but when the man had returned to Hogwarts after the war, he even more of a snarky bastard than he had before he almost died.

Hermione had made the mistake of assuming things would be better only once, at the second dinner of the term, when she had leaned across the table to inquire over his renewed health and had received nothing more than a positively nasty scowl in return.

Determined not to allow the man's atrocious attitude interrupt her current intentions, Hermione released her hold on her wand and set off again for her destination, more ready than ever to reach the quiet comfort of the library.

* * *

Nearly nine hours later, the lamps in the library having long been lit, Hermione could still be found in her typical pose at a table tucked in the corner near a window, piles of books and papers stacked to dangerous heights around her and her cat curled about her feet.

The room was eerily quiet, the silence broken only by the rustling of her papers and occasionally the distant grinding of a shifting staircase, but the young woman hard at work wasn't even aware of exactly how alone she was.

This had been the pattern for a number of weeks now, ever since Hagrid had burst into the headmistress's office gasping through panted breaths about a moving tree. Hermione would settle into the library at daybreak and she wouldn't leave until long after dark, lucky if she even remembered to leave for meals. And yet, she still had no answers for the threat that was menacing her school.

It had started slowly, along the very edges of the Forbidden Forest, just a few trees growing unusually rapidly. That had been noticed on a Tuesday. By the following Sunday, Hagrid's pumpkin patch was a mess of tree roots and shrivelled vines, and it had quickly become clear that something more was amiss in the woods.

Over the following weeks, the trees had crept closer and closer to the castle walls, though no one ever reported actually seeing them move. First, Hagrid was forced out of his cabin, and then the walls of Professor Sprout's greenhouses were smashed to bits by overgrown tree branches.

Oddly enough, the trees' advance seemed to have stopped there and they again looked to be nothing more than the Forbidden Forest that had always bordered the school, if not significantly closer and looming more dangerously. Normal at least, until insidious tendrils of rich green vines had started slinking from the dark border of the forest, creeping closer and closer to the castle walls.

It had been then, only three weeks from when Hagrid had noticed the first change in the trees, that the Ministry had ordered the school be closed and the students sent home. As terrible as it had been, Hermione couldn't help but be amused by the fact that trees could shut down Hogwarts when Voldemort could not. A smile curved her lips as the thought again crossed her mind.

All of a sudden, a loud growl echoed through the silent library, interrupting her thoughts and making Hermione jump, the witch blushing bright red at the awful noises her stomach was emitting though there was no one around to hear them.

"Nimbly!" She called out, remembering only when the familiar pop of house-elf apparition never came that the Ministry had sent even the house-elves away. She felt a moment's chagrin that she hadn't even bothered to find out where they were going, but in all reality it was likely they wouldn't have told her anyways. Despite the passing of several years she still didn't have the best of relationships with the elves of Hogwarts. Regardless, she was clearly going to have to fetch her own snack.

Carefully marking her place in her latest painfully useless book, _How to Handle Hairy Herbology, _and stuffing her quill haphazardly behind one ear, Hermione displaced Crookshanks, who wandered off with a disgruntled _mrow_, and set off for the kitchen, remembering only at the last minute to grab her bag and the half-empty tea cup still teetering atop a pile of books from the day before.

Pushing the library door open with one shoulder, she rolled her eyes at the ominous squeak of the hinges that Madam Pince had refused for years to fix. The sound followed her down the corridor as the door closed, echoing eerily off the cold stone walls. The witch walked a little faster as silence descended once again, the cosy warmth of the library quickly overcome by the distinct chill of the Scottish winter permeating the building.

Eager to reach the kitchen and the heat of a good cup of tea, Hermione quickly padded down the stairs, entirely unaware of the soft tread of dragon hide boots approaching behind her until a firm "Miss Granger," rang out, paired with a large hand grasping at her elbow.

Hermione shrieked and whirled, sending cold tea splashing down her robes and the porcelain cup smashing to the ground. Scolding herself inwardly for being such a ninny while simultaneously plucking at the soaked fabric of her robes, Hermione scowled up at Snape where he stood two steps above her.

"Can I help you, Professor Snape?" she asked frostily, her scowl deepening as she caught a flicker of a smirk crossing his expressionless face.

Instead of responding to her question however, he produced a large white handkerchief from one deep pocket and dangled it in front of her. It wasn't until she had snatched the cloth with very little grace and begun dabbing at the mess that he again spoke.

"Forgive me, Miss Granger," he drawled, and for a moment she could have almost sworn laughter tinged his tone. "I had no intention of…startling you. But if you continue to exercise your regrettably poor judgment and insist upon staying in the castle, then there is something outside it would be valuable for you to see."

Hermione's eyes widened, she was temporarily distracted from the damp cold against her skin by the prospect of new knowledge.

"What is it?" she asked eagerly, gaining a scornfully raised brow from the Potions Master.

"I believe I clarified it needs to be seen. If not for that, don't you think I would have _described_ it to you already?"

Hermione's face reddened but quickly recovered, turning around to again start down the stairs, only to be stopped by Snape's intonation of, "Wrong way, Miss Granger." She turned with a raised brow, reminiscent of his own, and he continued.

"What I have to show you will be easiest seen from the Astronomy Tower, I believe. Unless, of course, you'd particularly care to be ambushed by plant life?"

Hermione's surprise was evident in her expression, her mind racing in an effort to determine what could have happened that was important enough to warrant a professor, one who she was fairly certain couldn't stand her, searching her out to show her.

Nevertheless, she was quick to follow the man when he set off towards the highest point in the school, earning a withering glare from him as she crunched over the remains of her teacup, which she quickly vanished with a flick of her wand.

Sprinting up the stairs to catch up to the retreating man, she called out, "Professor Snape?" He didn't acknowledge her or break his stride, but she got the impression he was listening. "

Surely nothing's happened to the castle? The forest is still hundreds of meters away. Why can't we survey from the courtyard like Professor McGonagall arranged?"

He cast a disdainful glance over his shoulder, but his answer didn't come until they were nearly halfway down the fifth-floor corridor. "The forest is changing again. It doesn't take your _incredible genius_," he sneered, "to determine that it might be safer at the moment to not be outdoors with the rabid botanicals."

Hermione's lips pressed into a grim line as the implications of the man's words sank in. If Severus Snape, the man who had fought and survived nearly every horror the wizarding world had to offer, thought something was dangerous, it was likely that any other person would define the object as alarmingly lethal.

The closer the pair got to the Astronomy Tower, the faster the professor's long strides became, until Hermione was practically running in order to keep up with him. She couldn't imagine it would go well for her if Snape caught her dawdling.

They burst onto the tower with a loud bang, Snape slamming the door open just as he had in his classroom for the six years she had been his student. She couldn't help but wonder if that was how he opened all doors, stifling a snicker at the thought of the dour Potions Master making such an entrance at the grocer's. She apparently didn't do a decent enough job at hiding her amusement however, judging by the harsh glare she received from the man.

Trying to pass her amusement off as shock at the sudden blast of cold air, she rubbed her arms and brushed past him to the edge of the tower. This time, Hermione's shock was real, her chocolate eyes blinking wide in disbelief.

The forest that had been hundreds of meters away from the castle gates only hours before now loomed close enough that if she were to drop something over the edge of the tower, it would likely land in the gnarled branches of one of the rowan trees pushing up against the castle walls.

Hermione whirled away from the sight, demanding, "What in Merlin's name happened?" of the man still standing in the centre of the tower, the bright light of the moon throwing his scowling features into sharp relief.

"The trees moved, Miss Granger, I would think that much would be obvious." Hermione opened her mouth to snap in reply to his snark, but he continued on without pause. "Frankly though, invading foliage should be the least of your worries at the moment."

Hermione's brow furrowed in confusion and Snape scoffed loudly, striding to where she stood and gesturing out at the surrounding forest.

"Do you really not notice anything at all unusual about our situation here, besides the ever so brilliant observation that _the trees moved_?"

He waited, but still Hermione had no answer. For all intents and purposes, this night was just like any other at Hogwarts, barring the issues with the trees.

"_Listen_, Miss Granger," the professor hissed, and it was then she realized.

"It's quiet," she remarked with surprise. "Really, truly quiet. Where is everything that should be living in the forest?"

"Exactly."

Hermione looked out over the forest, leaning over the parapet and looking down, down, down into the eerie stillness of the dark forest. "Even the birds are gone," she whispered quietly to herself.

"Yes, Miss Granger, the birds, and the squirrels, and the kneazles, and the centaurs. _Everything alive_ is gone," the dark man hissed acerbically.

"Well that certainly doesn't bode well, does it?" Hermione murmured distractedly, her eyes scanning rapidly over the uncanny stillness of the forest. "But...it's not all quiet...there! Don't you hear something? It's faint, but–"

Her words faded as, even as they watched, the stillness of the forest was broken. Nearly invisible at the horizon, the towering trees whipped about as if blown by a harsh wind though there wasn't even a breeze stirring the cold night air. And as the pair watched, the rustling sound Hermione had detected grew louder and louder as, one by one, the trees of the Forbidden Forest stirred to life, the motion rushing towards the castle as if all at once the forest itself heaved a great sigh.

Then, almost as abruptly as it had begun, the rustling in the forest stilled, looking for all the world as if the disturbance had never occurred. Neither the Charms Apprentice nor the Potions Master spoke for a long moment, each staring out over the now-quiet woods in disbelief.

"What _was_ that?" Hermione whispered finally. She turned to face the professor, expecting an answer to her question, only to be met by empty space where the man had stood only moments before.

"Professor Snape," she called as she whirled to see the man already nearly at the stairwell door.

The man stopped at her call and spun on his heel, stalking closer as he hissed an answer. "That was dark magic, you stupid girl. Don't you know it by now? Whatever that was, it most certainly _does not bode well._"

As he again turned to head towards the relative safety offered by the indoors, Hermione this time rapidly following after him, a loud crack rent the still night air, freezing them in their steps. Then another crack sounded, fracturing the echo of the first and chased by the clean sound of shattering glass ringing faintly up from the courtyards below.

"Miss Granger?"

"Professor Snape?"

"I suggest you run."

* * *

**A/N: Let me know what you thought! Chapter 2 will be up next Friday!**


	2. Confusion's Masterpiece

**A/N: Posting Chapter 2 just a little bit early for you guys, because you asked so nicely. Onward!**

* * *

Snape reached the door before Hermione and wrenched it open, his robes billowing behind him as he rushed down the stairs, Hermione following close on his heels. They barrelled down the steps, their footsteps reverberating loudly as they ran all the way to the Entry Hall, only to stop short in the doorway.

Barely avoiding running into the Potions Master's back, Hermione's breath caught in her throat as she took in the sight revealed when the man stepped aside. A large crack ran down the middle of one of the main doors and broken glass littered the floor, glittering in the torchlight while the panes of the towering windows stood empty.

It took a moment for her eyes to register the cause of the mayhem in the dim light. Barely visible from their spot standing in the archway, small vines twisted through the windows, twining like snakes through the empty window panes.

Then, before their very eyes, the gnarled limb of an oak tree came into view and reared back, then cracked against the heavy wooden doors with enough force to set them shuddering on their hinges.

"They're…attacking," Hermione breathed in shock.

"I'm afraid they've been doing that for weeks," Snape said bitterly. "It's simply that no one wanted to see it." With a disgusted grimace, he spun and walked away, Hermione hurrying after him.

"Professor Snape! Where are you going? Professor? We have to do something! _Severus!_"

The man froze and whirled to face her. "There is nothing to be done, _Miss Granger_. Only a fool fights the thing he does not know, something I would have assumed you'd have realized after chasing after Mr. Potter for so many years."

Hermione faltered in the face of his harsh insinuation and he sneered. His expression was short-lived, however, his eyes sliding away from her to look fixedly over her head.

"Fucking shit," he swore, reaching out and grabbing Hermione's arm before she could react. "Move, Granger," the professor growled as he broke into a run, tugging her along behind him.

"For Merlin's sake, what–" Hermione's words froze as she twisted to catch sight of the scene behind her. The vines whose movement had been barely visible minutes earlier had nearly covered the large hall, creeping quickly over the floor and walls and rapidly heading towards the spot in which she and the potions professor had just been standing.

She found herself unable to tear her gaze away, staring in horrified fascination as the muffled cries of vine-covered portraits echoed after them as they ran. It wasn't until her foot caught on an uneven stone and she stumbled, wrenching her arm from Snape's grasp, that she began to again pay attention to where they were going.

The professor was presumably heading for his office, and the fireplace that would offer an escape from the encroaching threat, assuming the Ministry hadn't disabled the Floo. Frankly, Hermione couldn't blame him; in fact she would likely be following him. Her experience with the Devil's Snare in her first year had been more than enough of an ordeal to make her certain that death by plant was not for her.

She was not, however, about to leave the castle and abandon three weeks of topically organized, colour-coded notes to rot in the library. Having made that decision, when they reached the stairs that would lead to the dungeons, Hermione instead veered in the other direction, sprinting up three flights of stairs and down another.

Skidding into the library and panting hard, she rushed to her table. She shuffled quickly through the parchment scattered across the surface, wincing as the loud crack of the trees trying to break down a door somewhere in the castle rang through the room. Giving up on maintaining any kind of order in favour of haste, Hermione began stuffing the papers haphazardly into her bag. She was nearly done, collecting a few straggling notes when a voice boomed behind her.

"What in the hell do you think you're doing?"

Hermione tensed but refused to look at the clearly irate man behind her.

"I'm gathering my notes," she replied as calmly as she could manage, taking longer than was strictly necessary to align the edges of her parchments.

When she finally turned to leave the room, she was mildly surprised to discover the Potions master still glowering at her from the end of the nearest row of shelves.

"Are you single-handedly attempting to finish the Dark Lord's work and get us both killed?" He demanded tersely, looking darkly intimidating and folding his arms across his chest as he waited expectantly.

Hermione raised her brows and hitched her bag more securely over her shoulder. "I didn't drag you here," she remarked brazenly, growing irritated by the man's constant accusations.

He scowled fiercely, his tone scathingly dry as he replied, "No, but I have no intention of being the one to tell Minerva McGonagall that her precious pet was too inanely stubborn to survive. So you will follow me this instant or I swear I will stun you and literally drag you out of this room."

Hermione flushed angrily, opening her mouth to argue but snapping it shut again when he lazily produced his wand from his sleeve, raising one taunting brow. She scowled, aiming a glare that would melt glaciers towards the man as she grabbed one final stack of papers and filed past the man.

"Temper, temper," she heard him tut and had to resist the urge to turn and wallop the awful man with her bag. Instead, she stormed from the library in silence, uncaring at this point if the resident Potions Master had deigned to follow her or not.

She wasn't sure what she had ever done to the man to make him so very hostile, it wasn't as if it were her fault he had been on bed rest after the war, trapped in Grimmauld Place with rarely anyone but her and Harry for company. But ever since then–

She continued her mental rant about the professor's behaviour as she sailed down the hall, all the while paying less attention to her surroundings than was strictly advisable. So distracted was she, in fact, that she never noticed the tendrils of ivy creeping across the top step until her foot caught it, pitching her forward.

A strong grip at her elbow stopped her from tumbling down the stairs at the last minute, an action accompanied by a scornful hiss of, "_Pay attention."_

Hermione's face heated as she righted herself, forcing her current irritation with the man away in order to observe their current reality. Already some of the invading plant life had reached the second floor, long fingerlings of vines twisting up the marble banisters, an unsettlingly sinister sight. She could easily see where the stone was beginning to crumble, as if it had aged hundreds of years in the space of hours.

Suddenly, very ready to be gone from the disconcerting setting, Hermione again set off down the stairs, now following the professor who had pushed rudely past her while she stared. She had made it no further than the fourth step, however, when she again stilled, this time pulling her wand from her pocket as she did so.

"Professor?" she called out hesitantly, then again more loudly when he ignored her. "Professor Snape, behind you!"

Before her very eyes, the vines were...it could only be described as _reaching _for the man as he raced down the stairs. As she frantically searched mentally for a spell that would halt marauding plant life, Snape reacted to her second call, producing his wand without missing a step and blasting the vines attempting to wrap around his ankles with a burst of lilac fire.

"Quicker, Miss Granger." His rough baritone reached her ears even as the man himself swept back up the steps to grasp her arm with a fearsome scowl, tugging her after him as he returned to his original path.

Hermione wrenched her arm free from his grip after only a few steps, having grown rather tired of being dragged in every which direction by Severus Snape. Even still, she was careful to stay close on his trail. She may have been stubborn, but she was certainly not stupid enough to stray far from someone who was clearly more prepared to fight _plants_ than she was.

Several long minutes and a number of lilac bursts later, the pair reached the dungeons, Snape showing no signs that they had run through three floors worth of corridors while Hermione struggled to catch her breath behind him. Hermione wasn't positive Snape was even aware she still followed him, he certainly didn't act as if he was, striding into the Potions classroom and nearly slamming the door in her face.

Scowling as she caught the door and shut it gently behind her, Hermione turned, a chastisement ready at her lips, only to be faced by the sight of Snape waving his wand in a familiar warding pattern, shielding the only outside entrance into the room.

Her angry words subsided before they could be spoken, interrupting a warding by a powerful enough witch or wizard could be dangerous business. Instead, she watched in fascinated silence as his wand moved in a complex pattern she had never witnessed before.

When the man finally finished his casting, Hermione had to ignore the sudden, deeply-ingrained impulse to raise her hand, eager to ask questions in this comfortingly academic setting. Before she could even draw breath to speak, however, the man spun, his robes a dramatically dark swirl around him as he headed for the unobtrusive wooden door in the back corner of the room.

His hand was on the doorknob before he again acknowledged her presence. "You are not to leave this room," he intoned without even looking at her.

"But the Floo–" she started, only to be interrupted by his scathing tone.

"The Floo was disabled as soon as the Ministry gave the evacuation notice, you foolish girl. Something you would have known had you been forced to leave the library at all in the past weeks."

These last words were spoken with a sneer and Hermione prepared to protest their unfairness, but before she could say a word, he was gone, the door closing behind him with the distinctive _snick_ of a lock being turned. The witch stared after him for a moment, debating whether or not banging on that door and demanding an explanation would be of any use.

A laugh slipped from her as she completed the thought, breaking the silence of the dungeon classroom. Her current situation was affecting her more than she thought if she had really believed that idea had held any merit. More likely was the scenario that instead of receiving a response to her demands she would be the recipient of a nasty hex that led to oozing orifices or something equally as vile.

She had seen more than one example of that particular brand of Snape's temper during his recovery at Grimmauld Place after the war. Ron had learned the hard way that there were no countercurses for Snape's spells; it had taken nearly a month for the effects of that particular episode to fade. No, she was fairly certain it would be in her best interests to avoid knocking on that unassuming door.

Resigning herself to spending an indefinite amount of time in the chilly dungeon with its perpetual tinge of damp, Hermione let her bag slip from her shoulder to land on the stone floor with a thud. Rolling her shoulders to release some of the tension that had gathered there, she hadn't had the chance to recast the Feather-light charm on her bag before she'd been hounded from the library, Hermione slid into the nearest desk.

She felt a moment's concern when she realised that her cat wasn't there to assume his customary position on her, and guilt that it had taken her so long to realise, but if she were honest, the half-kneazle likely had a better chance of surviving on his own than she and Snape combined.

Pulling the top-most book out of her bag and her quill from where it had miraculously stayed put behind her ear, she bent again to her notes. Her only company in the castle could sulk and rage all he wished, but there was still work to be done.

She toiled until the chill seeping into her bones could no longer be ignored, it was nearly impossible to focus when one's teeth were constantly threatening to chatter. She shivered, glancing irritatedly at the empty fireplace on the wall, with not a scrap of fuel in sight.

If the Potions professor didn't reappear soon, she would be tempted to burn a desk or two just to spite the man. For the moment though, a warming spell would have to do. It had served its purpose through months of camping in wintery forests, surely it would do just as well in the Hogwarts dungeons.

* * *

Hermione woke with a start, her cheek pressed to her notes and her quill dangling limply from her hand. Her warming charm had clearly worn off, the chill pervading the room more evident than ever. With a frown, she sat up and reached for her wand to recast the spell and then paused, instead casting a _Tempus_ spell.

The results made her jaw drop. It had been six, almost seven hours since she had first left the library, and she had spent most of them trapped in the classroom, doing nothing but waiting.

_Infernal man,_ she thought to herself as she tucked her wand into her pocket and closed the book lying on the desk with a decisive snap, all the while glaring daggers at the still untouched door behind which the professor had disappeared hours earlier. With a huff, she stood, leaving her notes scattered where they were.

She was done waiting. If Severus Snape thought she would simply sit about in his miserable classroom the entire night like a mouse too scared to move, then maybe Harry and Ron had been right when they guessed he had come back insane.

Having worked herself into a fine temper in the moments after she woke from her impromptu nap, Hermione paced to the door and brandished her wand, blasting through Snape's wards with little of the finesse she normally would have shown. She may not be entirely safe outside the Potions classroom, but with any luck she would at least be able to reach the kitchens to eat the dinner her stomach was reminding her rather loudly she had missed. And if she were truly fortunate, she could find her way into the Slytherin dormitories and commandeer a bed for what little of the night remained.

Taking more satisfaction than she should have from the sound of the classroom door slamming shut behind her, Hermione set off down the hall, not even making it to the corner before she stopped and turned back to the door she had just closed. With a sigh of the long-suffering, she lifted her wand.

She may have been beyond frustrated with the man behind that door, but angry or not it would be irresponsible of her to leave him defenceless and unaware. With a few practiced flicks of her wand, the wards were back in place and she was on her way again.

She had been walking through the dungeons for several minutes, trying to orient herself, when it suddenly came to her that she hadn't seen, been attacked by, or really come across any sign whatsoever of the very threat that had forced them into the dungeons in the first place.

Unable to repress her curiosity at the fact, Hermione retraced her steps back to the Potions classroom and then headed in the opposite direction, towards the staircase they had sprinted down earlier. As she neared the stairs, her pace slowed and she listened closely for any sign of movement. The empty hallways were eerie in their silence, particularly considering the attack Hermione was fairly certain raged above her head.

Having still not seen any sign of encroaching greenery, she crept carefully up the stairs, her wand at the ready just in case. Turning the last corner of the stairwell, she stopped abruptly, faced with a solid stone wall where the archway should have been.

Glancing over her shoulder to make sure she hadn't gotten turned around, though she was certain she hadn't, Hermione placed her hand on the wall, jumping at the spark of magic that pushed her away as soon as she made contact. A tiny frown knit her brow as she pointed her wand directly at the wall and murmured, "Revelio".

After waiting expectantly for a few seconds, during which precisely nothing happened, the witch again frowned, rolling her wand thoughtfully between her fingers before she gestured again, this time silently. Her eyes lit up and a triumphant smile quirked her lips as a silver shimmer spread over the wall, quickly condensing to form a series of glittering runes.

It took only moments for Hermione to settle into an academic mindset, her eyes tracing eagerly over the runes that specified protection for the dungeons. She was certain they had to be Snape's work, they were nearly a twin of the wards she had destroyed earlier, but there was something unusual about them that she couldn't quite place a finger on.

So fascinated by the patterns was she that the distinct clip of dragon-hide boots against the stone steps didn't even reach her ears until it was too late.

"Miss Granger!" The Potions Master's too-loud voice boomed in the enclosed space, causing Hermione to cringe reflexively before she pivoted to face the irate man. Preparing to defend herself against the inevitable onslaught of vitriol, Hermione stiffened her shoulders, her amber eyes meeting his black gaze steadily.

"Professor," she greeted him as calmly as she could manage under the circumstances, allowing herself to feel a small swell of victory as one of his dark brows twitched in surprise.

He recovered quickly enough though, quiet wrath lacing his tone as he demanded, "Did I or did I not tell you to _stay put_, Granger?"

Hermione lifted her chin in silent mutiny, turning her back on him to again study the shimmering runes.

"This is your work?" She mused aloud, answering his question with one of her own. "But they weren't here earlier and you never left your office, how did you manage it?"

"I will not waste away what very well may be the rest of my life hieing all over this thrice-bedamned castle in a clearly futile attempt to protect a Gryffindor who clearly doesn't care a whit for her own life!" He exploded, steam-rolling right over her attempts to subvert their argument.

His burst of rage subsided into furious, mostly inaudible mutterings, though Hermione caught mentions of the words "Potter" and "Azkaban" more than once. Still steadfastly staring at the wall, if not truly seeing it, Hermione spoke, knowing that if she were to actually look at the professor she would cave in the face of his anger.

"Thank you for your concern, Professor," she said, her voice chillingly polite. "But you needn't concern yourself with my safety any longer. Although I have to question your supposed concern, as one typically doesn't leave an object of concern to freeze to death in a wretched classroom overnight. But that's of no matter. The dungeons are obviously secure and I shouldn't wish to be a nuisance any longer."

She remained very still as she waited for his response to her daring, but none was forthcoming. Instead, after a moment that seemed much longer than it truly was, she heard him sweeping down the stairs and was left alone in silence. It was then she realised that she had not a single idea what she was going to do next, now that she wasn't being held prisoner by the irascible professor.

With a sigh, she slumped against the wall, absently tracing the warding signs with a single finger, the previous spark now only a tingle. Distracted, she reached for her bag to fish a scrap of paper from it so she could copy the symbols down, only to curse under her breath when she realized the bag was still sitting where she had left it on the floor of the Potions classroom.

Relinquishing any hope she had of being able to entirely unravel the design of the wards for the time being, Hermione straightened and let out a great yawn, surprising herself as a wave of fatigue washed over her. Clearly her earlier nap hadn't been enough to renew her already-weary body.

As she walked slowly down the stairs, the young witch debated returning to the classroom for her things but quickly abandoned the idea. The chances of her running into the master of that particular classroom were far too high and certainly something she wanted to avoid for the time being. So Hermione returned instead to her original plan and set off in the direction she thought she remembered Harry having mentioned the Slytherin dorms were located.

She found the entrance easily enough, surprisingly so actually, but getting past the wall barring the archway proved to be a different matter entirely. _Really? _Hermione thought to herself as she cast the same spell as she had earlier, watching as nearly identical runes came into view. _A little creative variance would be nice._

She spent nearly fifteen minutes trying to unravel the wards, something she was a fairly dab hand at, but had little success. Frustrated, she crossed her arms across her chest and glared at the simple doorway. With the last vestiges of hope she had, she began tossing out words that were appropriately Slytherin enough to serve as passwords.

Neither 'Salazar' nor 'Baron', 'ambition' nor 'cunning' received any response and by the time she reached 'Gryffindor sucks', Hermione just felt ridiculous. Clearly she wasn't going to get a decent night's rest.

With nothing left to do but go back to her research, the witch trudged slowly back through the dungeons, heading for the Potions classroom and the meagre comforts it offered.

* * *

**A/N: See you next Friday!**


	3. To Cry Hold

**A/N: Thanks so much for all the love you guys have shown this story so far! Here's the next chapter!**

* * *

Hermione pushed open the door to the Potions classroom and was halfway across the room before she realized something was different. She paused, drawing her wand warily and looked around, taking a long moment to register what had changed.

When it dawned, her brows flew up in surprise and her wand dropped to her side. There, in the grate in the corner, a fire crackled merrily, casting dancing light and a cosy warmth throughout the room. Her gaze flitted to the closed door still barring the way to Snape's office and then back to the flames, a bemused expression crossing her face.

At a loss to explain the inner workings of the Potions professor's mind, Hermione slipped back into her desk, enjoying the newfound warmth as she found her place in her notes and again bent to her work. Hours passed and still she made little progress towards a solution, or even towards identifying the source of their problem.

Information abounded about dangerous plants, she was fairly certain she knew everything there was to know about Chinese Chomping Cabbages, and Venomous Tentacula, and Fanged Geraniums, but nowhere could she find a single mention of marauding oak trees.

She was close to temporarily giving up on her research in favour of another nap when a footnote at the bottom of page six hundred and forty three in _Stonemoore's Treatise on Rare Herbological Functions in the Plants of the British Isles_ caught her eye. A tiny squeal of excitement escaped from her as she read.

_This particular variation of _Salix flagello_ is purportedly largely to blame for the destruction of Tsvilenev Castle in1034 A.D. in what is now known as Latvia, as described by M. Loakkonen in the records of Citeaux Abbey._

Hermione nearly vibrated with the excitement of her discovery, diving for her bag and rifling through it in desperate hopes that she would find more material referencing the castle, or even the abbey. By the time she was done, she was sitting on the floor surrounded by what could amount to a small library and feeling rather dejected.

Her charm, a spell of her own creation designed to search out specific words in a book, had delivered not a single result about the Slavic castle and only one referencing Citeaux Abbey, a short sentence that simply referenced another book which, of course, she did not have in her possession. What she wouldn't give to be able to get back to the Hogwarts library…

Suddenly, her expression lightened as a thought crossed her mind. Professor Flitwick had an extensive private library that covered an entire range of topics (he had a particular penchant for Muggle crime novels).

It stood to reason then, that if the Charms professor had room to store books, then the Potions professor would as well, didn't it? Whether or not the man would actually open the door so she could actually search through his books, well that was another matter entirely.

Determined not to let the professor's nasty temper get in the way of a potential means to save Hogwarts, Hermione stood, dusting off her robes and striding to his office door. Taking a deep breath, she knocked boldly. Surprisingly enough, however, her knock, instead of bringing an undoubtedly irate Potions Master to the door, pushed the door open just a crack, it obviously hadn't been latched properly.

Hermione hesitated mid-knock and dropped her hand, calling out cautiously, "Professor Snape?" When she received only silence in response, she stiffened her shoulders and pushed the door open farther, praying she wouldn't encounter the man poised at his desk just waiting to hex her. She breathed a slight sigh of relief when the room proved to be empty.

Sparing a moment for a slightly bitter thought that the professor was enjoying the comforts of his chambers while she was stuck in the classroom, Hermione cast her gaze about his office. She hadn't been in this room for years, not since she had realized the futility in demanding a fair grade from the man, but she couldn't see that much had changed.

The shelves lining the walls were still packed with jars filled with all manner of unpleasant-looking things and the chair in front of the desk looked even more uncomfortable and rickety than it had before. The only thing in the entire room that was notably different were the papers scattered haphazardly over the desk she had always remembered to be pristine.

Even from a distance she could see that sheet after sheet of parchment was covered in the professor's bold, slashing script. The scene looked as if the man had left in quite a hurry, the cap had been left off the ink and a quill lay abandoned atop a pile of parchment, a dark inkblot spreading slowly from its nib.

Hermione gasped as she spotted the leaking ink, rushing to the desk and snatching the quill up. Having rescued the professor's work from what had been almost certain ruin, Hermione knew she should replace the quill somewhere safer and leave the papers be, but the few words she caught out of the corner of her eye proved to be too great a temptation to ignore.

He seemed to have been working on the same problem that had occupied all of her time of late, the pages were full of ideas about carnivorous plants and sentient bushes, and even, she was surprised to note, a reference to Shakespeare's Macbeth. That was an angle she hadn't considered, the work did go on at length about moving forests but–

A door slammed against the wall with a loud crash, earning a shriek from Hermione as she whirled to face the doorway that hadn't been on that wall two minutes earlier and the glowering Potions professor occupying it.

"Professor Snape!" She exclaimed. "I was just–"

"Just prying into things that are _none of your business?_"

Hermione flushed and gestured lamely at the blotch of ink on the top paper. "I came in looking for you, well for a book really, and your papers were getting ruined and I–"

"Felt the need to interrupt me to assuage your own petty boredom?"

Hermione bristled, snatching a scrap of parchment from the desk that stood between them, quickly dashing a few brief lines about the topics she was searching for, and shoved it into the hand that didn't hold the book he had presumably left to fetch.

"If you happen to come across any information along these lines, I would appreciate it if you would pass it along."

Before the acerbic man could say another word, she spun and nearly ran out of the room. Somehow, she didn't think that her sticking around for a response would be beneficial to either of their health. She was simply going to have to wait until she could contact someone outside the castle to get the information she needed.

In hopes that time would be sooner rather than later, Hermione procured a fresh leaf of parchment and sat to pen a series of letters. She hadn't made it any further than _Dear Harry_ when Snape's office door hit the wall with a bang and the man swept into the room.

Hermione's eyes flicked up from her letter to follow his movements, but she refused to acknowledge him until he stopped directly in front of the desk she had adopted. When his footsteps stilled, Hermione made a point to finish writing out her sentence before letting her gaze slide up his front, raising her eyes until they met his.

"Can I help you, sir?" she asked, frigidly polite. He scowled darkly and dropped a large tome on her desk, right onto the still-damp letter.

"Your book," he said tersely. "And you have ink on your face."

He tapped a spot on his cheek and turned to retreat back to his office in the stunned silence left by his actions. Hermione stared after him, self-consciously wiping at her cheek. She looked down at the book he had left and then back up just in time to call a weak "thank you" before he shut the door.

After staring at the closed door in a state of disbelief for several long minutes, she finally turned her attention back to the book he had delivered. Carefully prying her letter away from where it had gotten stuck to the cover, she flipped it open to eagerly scan the cover page. As she read, her smile faded and her brow furrowed in confusion.

_The Vixen and the Crone: Tales of the Old World_. He had given her a book of…Russian folklore? And of course he hadn't bothered to offer any sort of explanation whatsoever.

With a sigh and a hope that the man wasn't leading her on a merry chase just for his amusement, Hermione flipped to the first story and began to read. Three stories in, which, while they were terribly interesting, weren't at all helpful, the witch sat back and dropped her quill with a groan, stretching and scowling as her stomach let out a loud rumble.

She'd missed at least two meals by this point; she was in for a nasty headache if she didn't eat something soon. Unless she wanted to snack on the potions ingredients stashed in the cupboard, which certainly wasn't advisable, a trip to the kitchens was going to be necessary.

There were a number of ways to access the Hogwarts kitchens other than the portrait entrance that none of the students were supposed to know about but everyone had used anyways. The first week of her apprenticeship alone, she had been shown three different entrances by two professors and a ghost. Rumour was, there was a passage from the Slytherin dungeons to the kitchen as well, hidden somewhere near the statue of Merlin Emrys, and damned if she wasn't going to find it.

Wrapping her robes more securely around her person and checking to make sure her wand was still in her pocket, Hermione again forayed into the dungeon hallways, this time trotting along at a much quicker pace once she determined there still wasn't any danger. If she remembered right, she had passed the Merlin statue on her earlier trip through the halls.

If she wasn't mistaken, it should be right around the corner...there! Coming to a stop in front of the waist-high statue of the wizened old man, she studied it for a moment, trying to determine how she would get to the kitchen passage. Assuming there really was one, of course.

The stone from which the statue was carved looked to be fairly solid, but so did the majority of the figures that guarded the Hogwarts passageways. Giving up on the solution being at all obvious, Hermione began running her hands over the cool stone hoping to find a latch or a button or something along those lines.

As she felt Merlin's beard shift beneath her fingers, a triumphant smile flashed across her lips. Pulling the long, wispy beard forward triggered a loud grinding sound as the wall a few metres down the hall slid away, revealing a dark, narrow passageway. With the barest trace of a happy skip in her step, the witch pulled her wand from her pocket and cast a quiet _Lumos_ before forging her way down the tight corridor.

She walked slowly down the dusty hallway; small spaces and near-total darkness were rather nerve-wracking when combined with the looming threat of potential death. Finally, after what had seemed like eons, Hermione reached a dead-end, her only option to continue on through the incongruous wooden door in front of her.

Taking a fortifying breath and hoping desperately that the passageway had actually led to the kitchens as it was supposed to and not to, say, the Great Hall and the associated mortal peril, Hermione turned the knob and pushed the door open, cringing at the loud shriek emitted by rusty hinges as it swung wide. Warm light flooded her dark corridor, earning a relieved smile from the witch as she stepped into the cavernous room that served as Hogwarts' kitchens.

It was an odd sensation to be able to be in the room without being swamped by eager-to-please house-elves, most of whom, by now, had forgiven her for the S.P.E.W. debacle. She'd never been able to actually look around the workspace before she was bustled off to a table in a cosy nook and plied with tea.

It was nearly intimidating in its vastness, reminding her closely of the muggle restaurant kitchens from that programme her mum had insisted on watching every Tuesday evening. Shaking off the sudden wave of nostalgia brought about by thought of her mother's usually disastrous attempts in the kitchen, Hermione reached up and pulled down a large pan from the gleaming rack above her head. A proper fry-up was suddenly the only thing that would do in her mind; after all she was fairly certain it was still breakfast time.

Fetching the kettle from where it still sat on a back burner, Hermione set the water to heat for tea and then set about searching for the ingredients she would need for her meal. There were a series of doors lining the far wall of the room, the only wall not crowded by cooking accoutrements. Upon closer inspection, they proved to hide the locations of a number of fully-stocked pantries, one of which was chilled, magically she presumed, to serve as an icebox.

It was with a cry of delight that she walked into the large cool room, as her eyes landed almost immediately on what had to be fifty cartons of eggs. And there, a little further down the shelf, rashers of bacon and packages of sausages by the dozen. Gathering up all she would need, Hermione carted her bounty back to the stove just in time to yank the kettle from the stove before it boiled.

An absolutely lovely cup of tea later and the witch began to cook, laying three slices of bacon in the hot pan, hesitating, and then adding several more. As far as she knew, Snape hadn't left his rooms or had a meal for at least as long as she had, surely he would be hungry as well.

When the breakfast was done and a fresh pot of tea brewed, Hermione loaded the entire thing onto a tray she had found hanging on the wall and headed back for the classroom, the tray bobbing merrily along behind her. When she reached the classroom and knocked on the professor's door to no response however, she paused.

Did she simply leave the plate on his desk with a Warming Charm and hope that he eventually found it or should she knock at his inner chamber and hope he answered? Snape was a fiercely private man and she knew better than most how much he liked to be disturbed while sleeping, but eggs left to warm for any length of time were really just awful.

Scolding herself for being a ninny, the man wasn't so truly terrible that he deserved a ruined breakfast, Hermione knocked crisply at the door she thought was there, despite it looking for all the world just like the stone wall on either side of it.

She was proved right a moment later when the door was wrenched open by one surprisingly dishevelled Severus Snape. Hermione had to fight to keep the shock from her face at his appearance, but judging from the man's expression, she hadn't been very successful.

She could count on less than one hand the number of times she had seen the man out of his tightly buttoned robes, if one didn't count the St. Mungo's-issued robes he had been forced to wear through the length of his recovery. He had somehow managed to make even those look frightfully intimidating though.

Now, however, he stood before her in wrinkled black trousers and a rumpled white oxford, the sleeves rolled all the way to his elbows. In all, the crowning effect of the entire bizarre picture had to be the tousled mess that was his hair and the clear imprint of a quill on his cheek.

"What do you want?" He growled, his voice raspy with sleep and startling Hermione into the realisation that she had been staring for far too long.

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, reaching for the tray still floating behind her and presenting it to him. "I made breakfast."

He raised a brow at her declaration of the obvious and she blushed, rushing to add, "And I thought you might like some."

He stared for a moment, his expression inscrutable and Hermione shifted uncomfortably, repressing the urge to babble more of an explanation. Finally after a period of silence long enough to make things sufficiently awkward, Snape reached out and took the tray from her, turning and walking back into his rooms without another word, leaving Hermione staring helplessly after him.

Her plate still sat on that tray, right next to his, but being so close to escaping this odd encounter with minimal damage, she was loathe to draw his attention again. Her stomach chose that very moment to rumble loudly, spurred by the delicious smells wafting through the room.

Snape set the tray down on a small table with a clatter, setting the dishes to rattling where they sat, and halfway turned to face Hermione with a sneer. "Come eat before you bring the castle down around our ears, Miss Granger. And for Merlin's sake, shut the door, you're letting the heat out."

Hermione's lips parted in shock as she blinked, trying to figure out if she had actually heard the man correctly or if her lack of sleep was finally getting to her.

His forceful snap of "Granger!" as he carried one of the plates to what seemed to be a more chaotic twin of his office desk settled the matter soon enough. The witch stepped quickly into the room and shut the door quietly behind her.

As she crossed the room to the table and its solitary chair, she kept a wary eye on the professor, who now ate with one hand while flipping the pages of a thick book with the other. She was uncertain as to how to interpret the entirely surreal situation in which she found herself, but she was positive that she would do everything in her power to avoid the return of his previous ire.

Quiet fell in the room as she sat to eat; the only sounds the clinking of silverware and the occasional pop of the fire in the grate. Hermione soon finished her meal and gathered her dishes, heading for the door and the Snape-free classroom. Opening the door, she paused on the threshold and looked back at the potions professor.

He looked so focused, one hand tunnelled through his hair and a frown knitting his brows, she hated to interrupt him but she had to know.

"Professor?" His quill stilled and she knew he was listening even though he didn't look at her. "Why did you give me that book, the Russian one?"

He glanced at her briefly and then again began to write. Hermione took that as a sign that she wasn't going to get an answer and started again to leave, only to be stopped by his voice.

"I believe the tale of The Witch and The Tree might be of use in your research."

A small smile curved Hermione's lips and with a murmur of "thank you," she slipped from the room, eager to go and read the story. She couldn't be certain, but right as she closed the door, she swore she heard a quiet "You're welcome, Miss Granger."

* * *

This pattern continued on for a number of days, each of them conducting their research in separate rooms and then meeting for silent meals with only the occasional ominous rumble to remind them of the mayhem being wreaked above their heads, and how very dire their circumstances truly were.

Then, one afternoon as Hermione gathered his dishes from lunch, she asked a single question, for she had learned that was all she could reasonably expect an answer to, this time looking for a specific book.

Instead of giving an answer, Snape raised his head from his work and looked directly at her. "For Merlin's sake, Granger, if you're going to insist on pestering me with your incessant questions, at least have the decency to move your research in here so I don't have to answer the damned door every thirty minutes."

He returned to his work, fiercely dunking his quill in the inkwell, and Hermione rolled her eyes behind his back at his dramatics. Yes, she had questions, but the man had a personal library the size of her childhood bedroom, what in Circe's name did he expect?

She debated arguing with the order, for that was exactly what it had been, and then discarded the idea. While the phrasing had been high-handed and fairly rude, the idea would certainly make her life, or at least her research, easier.

So instead of protesting, she left the room and a few minutes later walked back in with her bag and her arms full of books and parchment. Without a word and without a flicker of acknowledgement from the professor, she dumped the entire mess on the coffee table and sat on the sofa, pulling her feet up and grabbing for her latest book.


	4. Toil and Trouble

**A/N: We're nearing the end! Enjoy!**

* * *

Hermione yawned as she stretched, nestling further into the cosy warmth created by her cocoon of blankets. The soft, plush bed was such a pleasant change from the pallet she had transfigured from a spare desk and...

Her eyes flew open as she bolted upright, looking wildly around the room in an effort to figure out where she was. When she finally calmed enough to realize she was in Snape's chambers, she relaxed, sinking back into the sofa cushions of the sofa, absently fingering the soft weave of the blanket covering her.

Her relief was short lived, however, it only took a moment for her to realise the full implications of her current situation. _Oh god, oh god, oh god,_ Hermione's thoughts raced as she tensed and sprang to her feet. _I fell asleep on his couch, oh Merlin; he's going to be furious._

Not taking the time to wonder why Snape hadn't yelled and woken her up the second she drifted off, instead simply thanking providence for the fact, the witch scrambled to collect her things from the coffee table. So desperate to escape was she that she didn't notice the cup of lukewarm tea set atop her notes until it was too late. As she watched in horror, the cup teetered on the edge of the table before tumbling over, sending tea splattering across the lush Oriental rug.

With a cry of horror, Hermione dropped to her knees, snatching the blanket from the sofa behind her in a desperate effort to blot up the mess before it stained the beautiful pattern. A few minutes later, she had done as much as she could to erase any trace of the spill; she had never been much of one for household charms, much to the chagrin of Molly Weasley.

Pushing herself to her feet, she again tried to gather her things, cursing herself inwardly for her tendency to scatter her work. Just when she thought she was going to escape the room without a run-in with the surely-annoyed professor, the handle of the bathroom door turned and the door swung open, sending a cloud of vetiver-scented steam billowing into the room.

Hermione froze where she stood like a deer caught in the glare of headlights, half-bent at the waist and reaching toward the table. Out of the bathroom strode Snape, causing the witch to have to bite her lip to muffle her startled noise. The man wasn't wearing any clothes!

Hermione stared in shock, her eyes wide, and stayed as still as she could manage, hoping desperately that by some fortunate twist of fate that he wouldn't spot her. She relaxed only slightly as the steam cleared in the cool air, revealing that he was at least partially dressed, wearing his customary dark trousers and holding a shirt in one hand, inspecting it closely as he muttered to himself.

"Blasted buttons," she heard as he bent to rifle through a desk drawer. "What use is having a whole staff of house-elves when they're not around to sew the damn buttons?"

Hermione couldn't help but stare at the unsuspecting man, from her position by the sofa, she had an admirable view of the muscles that played across his back as he searched, cast into sharp relief in the flickering firelight. He was surprisingly well built for a man who spent the majority of his time lurking about the dungeons, perhaps it was a good thing he had always worn those billowing robes when he taught their classes. She could only imagine how much more insufferable Lavender and Parvati would have been had they had any idea exactly what lay beneath those robes.

Lost deep in thought, Hermione didn't realise that the professor had started to turn until his dark, stormy gaze collided with hers. As the agonizing silence in the room stretched on for interminably long seconds, the woman felt her eyes unwillingly drawn downward by a single bead of water trailing a path down his pale chest, rolling straight through a bold, silvery scar.

"Miss Granger," he barked, jolting her from her rapt reverie. Her eyes flew back to his face as a blush mottled her cheeks, though she was surprised to see that the colour was high in his cheeks as well. "If you're quite done gawking?"

If it were possible, Hermione's colour deepened even further and she stammered as she forced out an apology. "I'm sorry, Sev– professor, I was just leaving." She turned away from him and, picking up her work as she went, headed for the door, steadfastly making sure not to look anywhere near where the man still stood in alarming dishabille.

She had nearly made it to the exit when she was stopped by the man, who, when she inadvertently glanced in his direction, was still fiddling with his damaged shirt.

"Gods' blood, witch, unless you're going to make yourself useful and sew this button back, get back to your books. There's no time to be wasted on your silly prudish tendencies."

Hermione's nose wrinkled in indignation. She wasn't a prude! Just because she hadn't constantly been hiding away in corners with boys during her years at Hogwarts like some of the...ladies...she knew, didn't mean that she –

"Miss Granger!" Hermione snapped back to attention, her eyes flying away from where they had apparently fixed just below his navel.

Scowling to disguise her embarrassment at being caught staring yet again, the witch hurried forward and snatched the shirt from the wizard's grasp and the sewing kit from where it lay abandoned on the desk.

"For Merlin's sake," she muttered. "How difficult could it be to just choose a different shirt."

She obviously wasn't quiet enough, because as he turned and walked away, she heard him complaining under his breath, "They're all in the damn laundry."

Hermione's lips curled up unwillingly at the resentful tone in his voice. It would seem that the usually infallible potions master wasn't as unerringly capable as he had always seemed. Though, to be fair, her own clothes were getting rather dingy after eight days of freshening charms.

Covertly, she sniffed at her shirt, having abandoned her robes days ago, relieved to discover that it still smelled at least faintly of detergent, tinged with a whiff of tea she couldn't seem to get rid of. She plopped down onto the couch with distinct lack of grace and a sigh and adeptly threaded a needle as the half-clad professor disappeared into his bedroom. She may be pants at household charms, but growing up with dentists for parents had yielded her quite an unusual skill set.

She fished a matching button from a small bag, though she was wildly tempted to pick the bright red one instead, and set to mending the shirt. Her thoughts wandered as she worked and it almost escaped her notice when the potions master re-entered the room, she didn't look up until his foot hit the hearth with a thud and a muffled curse reached her ears.

She glanced up and then back to the button, and then up again, her eyes widening. The man was no longer half-naked. She tamped down an inexplicable swell of disappointment that rose within her at the observation and instead pursed her lips to keep from laughing. Instead of a bare chest, Snape now sported a bulky sweater that might could be called hunter green if one were feeling particularly generous, with a borderline glaring 'S' emblazoned on the front, unmistakeably the work of one Molly Weasley.

Hermione stifled a giggle as the man stoked the fire, a black scowl painting his face. The Weasley matriarch's particular brand of Christmas joy was no doubt a special kind of hell for the typically dour Severus Snape. She would almost feel bad for him if the entire thing weren't vaguely amusing.

As the man finished with the fire and straightened, Hermione cast her gaze back to the shirt, tying off her thread and breaking it with a quick snap. She halfway stood to return the shirt to the professor, just in time to be met by the slamming of his office door. Nonplussed, Hermione again sat, taking care to fold the shirt and lay it over the back of the couch. Clearly whatever good humour had spurred Snape to let her sleep in peace on his sofa and leave tea for her had vanished. The combination of a staring Gryffindor nitwit and a garish sweater, no doubt.

Resigning herself to a day filled with icy silences and angry scowls, the witch returned to her research. She was quickly running out of resources, or so Snape said, since the dratted man wouldn't actually let her _see_ his library, but she found herself no closer to any kind of answer.

Her theory about the Russian castle had been a total wash; it had turned out to be nothing more than a crazy old witch hybridizing whomping willows that got out of hand. Her letters to Harry and her contacts at various universities, sent via the Floo she had just barely managed to coax into working despite Ministry restrictions, had gone unanswered and the ominous rumblings from above were growing stronger and more frequent every hour that went by. She was starting to be afraid that, even if she and Snape did manage to find a way to stop the attack, there wouldn't be much of Hogwarts left to save.

She had just shut another useless book with a frustrated snarl when the professor re-entered the room, unexpectedly carrying an incongruous yellow teapot spangled with bright red flowers. It had taken Hermione only a few trips to the kitchen to conclude that Dumbledore had without a doubt had a hand in selecting the staff china, much to the chagrin of the majority of the faculty.

Snape set the pot down next to her empty cup on the table with a muted _thunk_ and snatched the mended shirt from where it lay without offering so much as a thank you. He then promptly vanished back into the bedroom. Hermione watched him leave with a single brow raised and then stood to pour first her cup of tea and then filling the cup that sat on the professor's desk.

She would have to admit, foul moods and excess snark aside, being trapped with the Potions Master had its advantages, mainly in the form of an excellent cup of tea.

* * *

The day passed quickly enough, as they tended to do when one couldn't tell the time of day without a watch. Snape's stony silences soon enough settled into a quiet, peaceful truce, though the shared intellectual intimacy that Hermione had grown so used to over the past week was missing.

Eventually, Hermione gave up on her books, her eyes going bleary from staring for so long. In desperate need of something else to do, she made her way to the Hogwarts kitchens, putting considerable more time and effort into dinner than she normally would. When she finally ran out of minor details to fiddle with, she loaded the tray with a full roast dinner and slowly made her way back to Snape's rooms.

She pushed the door open, fully expecting to serve dinner and for it to be summarily ignored by the plainly unpleasant man who had been doing the same to her all day, and instead found his desk empty. She found him easily enough, a quick survey of the room revealed that he now sat on what she had come to think of as "her" sofa, his dark head bent over her notes.

He glanced up when she set the heavy tray on the table and then looked back to her work. His tone was distracted as he waved one sheaf of notes in the air while gesturing at another, demanding, "How on earth did you manage to get from Whittlemore's Theorem on Magical Possession to an animated forest? Berlin proved that didn't apply to inanimate objects nearly a decade ago."

Hermione frowned, troubled that the man may have found a flaw in her carefully crafted research and circled the couch, dinner entirely forgotten, and plopped gracelessly onto the sofa, snatching the notes from his hand. She didn't realize exactly what she had done until the man cleared his throat pointedly and yanked his other hand out from beneath her. Hermione flushed brightly and shifted away from him with a muttered, "sorry," before going back to her notes.

"No, no, no, look here." She jabbed triumphantly at a line of her writing. "They did research at the Salem Institute in 1999 that proved the theorem could be applied to plants, since they're alive and therefore technically animate. So you see, I'm not certain yet, but this could really be it. It would at least explain our problem so we could search for an answer."

Her words were punctuated by a threatening rumble from above as she looked up excitedly to gauge the professor's reaction to her newest theory. She was startled to find his face only inches from hers, as he had looked up from the notes at the exact same moment. His eyes held hers for a long moment, almost as if he were searching for something in her expression. She offered him a small, bemused smile and he blinked, focusing again on the papers, nodding as he read.

"If that's the case, then the work here is at least plausible. You'll have to find a way to prove it, of course."

"Yes, yes, of course," Hermione waved him off as her excitement built. This was the first concept she'd come up with that the professor hadn't simply sneered at, though she hadn't seen him doing much better.

"But this has just got to be it, I don't know what took me so long, it's so stupid. I read about it _ages_ ago, back when we were getting ready to reset the wards for the school. I had been thinking that maybe we could put the plants that grow in the Black Lake to work defending the castle, but I never got to finish the research, I got distracted by the purity wards and figuring out how to get rid of the awful things. But maybe once we make it out of here I'll be able to go back to the lake idea, there's so much potential there and–"

She was stopped by Snape's hard grip on her arm, pulling her to face him as he urged, "What purity wards, Miss Granger?"

She looked at him blankly for a moment. "The wards Professor Babbling found carved in the stones on the South Wall?"

When still nothing other than irritated confusion shone in Snape's eyes, she tried again, speaking slowly as if she were explaining to a child. "She found wards that Salazar Slytherin built, and disguised rather well, I might add. They were designed to give purebloods certain..._advantages_ over others." Her voice tightened on those words. "Really, professor, is none of this ringing a bell? What on earth were you _doing_ during Reconstruction?"

His features darkened and she tensed as his entire being stiffened with rage. Her teasing had been light-hearted, certainly nothing that warranted–

The man grabbed her shoulders, shaking her hard as his eyes searched her face. "Miss Granger, _what did you do to the wards?_" When she simply stared, startled by his outburst, he shook her again, growling, "Hermione!"

Her eyes widened briefly and then her features settled into a scowl that would rival the man's in front of her. She wrenched away from his hold and glared, snapping, "What do you think I did? I got rid of the horrendous things."

Snape stood abruptly at her words, swearing violently. Hermione gaped after him as he paced across the room, jamming one hand frustratedly through his hair.

"For heaven's sake, professor, what's wrong? You can't actually have wanted to keep the bloody things? They were wrong on every level imaginable, Slytherin institution or no."

Snape actually snarled aloud as she spoke, refusing to offer a reply and instead storming into his bedroom. Hermione jumped up to follow him; this was not a conversation that dratted man could just walk away from because he didn't feel like engaging in it.

"_Severus Snape!_" She called out, just in time for the man to reappear in the doorway, a small, distinctly aged book clutched in one large hand.

He covered the room in a few long strides and wordlessly pressed the tome into her hands. Hermione clutched the book instinctively to her chest, unconsciously stroking the black leather of the cover.

"Read it, Granger," he hissed. "And then maybe you'll realize exactly how foolish you've been." With one final sneer, the impact of which Hermione felt clear to her core, the man spun and left the room, the sound of three slamming doors in close succession indicating she more than likely wouldn't be seeing him again soon.

She stood motionless in the centre of the room for a long moment, the cheerful warmth of the fire at direct odds with the chill that had set into her bones. Finally, she shook herself free of her thought and lowered the book she still clutched to get a better look at Snape's bitter offering. The leather was aged, faded and cracked in spots, the elaborately embossed snake barely visible on the front.

Distractedly, she wandered back to the sofa and sat, her entire focus on the small, brittle book as she carefully cracked it open. If there had been another person in the room as she read the first few carefully penned lines, they likely would have thought her a ghost so pale did she wash. Her amber eyes were impossibly large in her face as she read, her lips moving silently over the words in stunned disbelief.

_Here are recorded the words, deeds, and thoughts of Salazar Tiberius Slytherin, founder of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, established 1183 A.D._

Hermione could hardly contain her elation at the invaluable piece of wizarding history she held in her hands, her first instinct was to scramble for parchment and a quill to make note of every word contained within, and she was halfway there before she remembered exactly why the vaunted journal was in her hands in the first place.

So with the small sigh of a suffering academic, she lay the quill down and instead searched for her wand so that she could search the book quickly, there would always be time to sit down and read later. She could only hope her spell would work, she had never actually tested it on any sort of diary.

When she finally found the length of vine wood beneath the edge of the couch, she gave it a flick and the pages began to flip as if blown by a harsh wind. It took only seconds for the charm to still, the book falling open to a page almost exactly in the middle of the book. Unconsciously holding her breath, Hermione leaned forward to study what her spell had revealed.

_April 10, 1184 A.D. _

_Things have come to a head with my dear 'friends' today, blundering idiots that they are. That fool Gryffindor is the worst, by far, he simply refuses to be reasonable and see the importance of the superiority of the pureblood lines. _

_He seems to think that those foul, snivelling Muggles have more use in society than as the chattel they are. _

_Idiot._

_I have poured my very blood into this school, if that ass or his twittering accomplices think to ruin that, they are sorely mistaken. Little do they know I have taken certain...precautions to ensure those of foul, mixed blood will not succeed at Hogwarts. Even if I am discovered, the school will not continue without my particular measures in place._

_I can rest assured this eve that should anyone attempt to stop me, it would be the last imbecilic action they took in this life. _

_The strength of Slytherin blood will make it so._

The entry went on for several lines more, but Hermione registered none of it, her mind busy churning over the information she had just gleaned. If what she had read was true, and she had no reason to believe it wasn't, then...

She groaned aloud, whispering to the empty room, "What in Circe's name did I do?"


	5. Blood Will Have Blood

**A/N: And here we are at the final chapter! Enjoy, lovelies.**

* * *

Hermione Granger sat frozen on the sofa, in the surprisingly cosy quarters of Hogwarts' Potions Master, a book lying open and forgotten on her lap as she stared about the room without seeing. The destruction, the castle, _her home_, crumbling above her very head, it was all her fault.

Long minutes passed as the witch sat in utter silence until finally the loud shifting of a log in the fire brought her back to her present reality. With the bold motions of the suddenly resolute, Hermione shut the diary and set it on her table, careful with the ancient document even in her haste.

Armed with her newfound knowledge, she was more determined than ever to find a solution, and she had run out of options in the dungeons. Marching purposefully to the small fireplace, she brandished her wand and whispered, "Expecto Patronum." When her otter patronus danced happily in front of her, nearly transparent backlit by the flames, she began to speak in a hushed voice.

"Harry," she whispered urgently, conveying her message. "I'm hoping this will reach you. There's been a change here at Hogwarts and I'm desperate for some information I just can't get here. I hate to ask you to bend the rules, though Merlin knows if anyone could get away with it, it would be you. But if you get this, I need you to Floo me as soon as possible, in Professor Snape's quarters. And don't give me that look, Harry, I'll explain it all soon enough."

With a flick of her wand that would bind the message to the waiting patronus, Hermione fished some Floo powder from the pot of the mantle, her fingers scraping the bottom, and tossed it into the flames. With a silent prayer and a call of, "Potter Cottage," she sent the otter into the green flames, watching with a small sigh of relief as the silvery creature spun away.

With nothing left to do but wait for a response, or hunt down Snape, who had already made it abundantly clear he had no desire to see her, Hermione sat, fiddling with her notes and books and sorting them into neat piles, every edge perfectly aligned.

That task was accomplished far too quickly, there was still no sign of any communication from Harry and she found she was too restless to remain still. Instead she rose and began to flit around the room, searching for something with which to occupy her time. First, she Vanished the forgotten dinner that had congealed on the plates and then lining Severus's quills up in a straight line across his desk, in descending order of size.

She was just debating some minor rearranging of the furniture when a familiar _whoosh_ sounded and she whirled to see the bespectacled head of her best friend floating in the flames.

"Harry!" She cried as she hurried across the room, dropping to her knees in front of the fire.

"Hi, 'Mione," he returned with a quick grin. "Glad to see me, are you?"

"Oh you have no idea," she returned his smile though it quickly faded as she continued on. "But I haven't gotten you in trouble, have I? I know the Ministry blocked us so our little problem couldn't spread or anything, but this was important and I–"

"Hermione!" Her friend cut her off. "Everything's fine here, Chosen One, remember? That's what took me so long; I went to the Minister for permission and everything. He wasn't happy about it, but it's amazing what an Order of Merlin can accomplish in this place."

His grin had turned sheepish, but shortly flattened into a line of concern as Hermione's expression turned worriedly serious. "Hermione, what is it? What's wrong?"

The witch hesitated for a moment before answering, choosing her words carefully in an effort to keep her friend from overreacting to her news. "I…we, I mean, figured out what's causing the forest to attack the school."

She couldn't help but notice the man's total lack of surprise at her mention of what had been going on at Hogwarts, apparently the Ministry was keeping closer watch than she realized on a supposedly abandoned castle.

Nevertheless, Harry's expression brightened at her words, his voice excited as he replied, "Brilliant, 'Mione! What is it? I can get a team of Aurors together and to the castle by tomorrow morning and–"

"Harry, Harry, no. It's not…it's not going to be that easy. Everything that's happening, it's a blood curse, a nasty one. I'm not sure that there's actually anything to be done other than to let it take its course, certainly nothing the Aurors could do."

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but Hermione cut him off before he could interrupt. "There may be something I could do, it might help, it has to, but I don't have the information I need here. Can you get into the Ministry archives without anyone asking questions?"

At his nod, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. Do you have something to write with? What I'll need is…"

* * *

Several minutes later, she had sent Harry on his way to collect every scrap of information he could find on breaking blood wards, and the curses associated with them. Her hopes weren't wildly high that he would actually return with anything useful, but that wasn't a reflection on him so much as it was on the resources the Ministry, in their infinite wisdom, had available. But all she could do was wait and hope and listen to Hogwarts falling down around her ears.

Quickly growing chilled sitting on the flagstone hearth despite the warmth of the low fire, Hermione got to her feet and made her way back to the sofa, tucking her feet beneath her as she sat and pulling the blanket across her lap. Keeping one ear tuned for any sign the Potions master was returning to his domain, Hermione reached out and picked up Slytherin's journal again.

She really wanted nothing more to do with the odious man, but the lure of so much otherwise unrecorded history was too much for her to ignore. The man's stories were terribly interesting, but peppered throughout with the most terrible slurs against anyone who didn't have the purest of bloodlines.

She was midway through his recounting of the very first Welcoming Feast held at Hogwarts when, at the edges of her vision, the flames in the grate flashed green again. This time, by the time Harry's head appeared in the flames, Hermione was already seated and anxiously awaiting his appearance.

"Blimey, Hermione," he blinked. "A little bit close there?" Hermione blushed and rocked back onto her heels.

"Sorry, Harry," she apologized, "I'm just excited I suppose."

Harry gave her an indulgent smile and teased, "Hermione Granger, excited about research, imagine that."

She waved his words away with a disgruntled sniff. "Never mind that, what did you find?"

Harry's face sobered almost instantly. "It's not good, Hermione. This is Dark magic, really, really bad stuff. Hermione, I don't think you're going to be able to fix this one."

"Harry. Harry, look at me please." She waited until his brilliant green eyes met hers and then spoke again.

"Harry, what did you find?" His head shifted in the fire, Hermione could tell he was doing that thing with his feet, the one he always did when he wanted nothing more than to avoid a conversation.

"Harry?"

He sighed. "Hermione, something like this has only ever been seen a few times before. And usually nothing could be done about it."

"And the times that something could be done?"

"Hermione, why don't you just let me tell the Ministry and let them take care of it?"

"Harry, what is it?"

"A blood sacrifice, Hermione. A fucking blood sacrifice. _Impure blood must be spilled_."

Hermione blanched white and then visibly recovered, her voice eerily composed as she asked, "How are the sacrifices performed?"

"It didn't say, but Hermione–"

"Harry, thank you, I've got to go."

"Hermione, no! Hermione, please don't do anything stupid. Hermione!"

His voice vanished with a faint echo as Hermione terminated the Floo connection with a flick of her wand. She regretted having to brush her friend off like that, especially after he had been so helpful, but she knew if she had let Harry linger about much longer he would have tried to come up with some stupidly heroic plan, and she simply didn't have time for that. As she pushed herself to her feet to get back to her research, she never noticed the tall, dark shadow that vanished from the open doorway.

* * *

Hermione stood with her hands braced on her hips, a deep frown marring her expression as she glared at the door that barred her way to Severus's personal library. If the dratted man wasn't going to have the decency to show up to get her the books she needed, then she was just going to take them.

Of course, she wasn't stupid, she had charmed every door between Snape's bedroom and the dungeon corridors to sound an alarm if they were opened, and she had no intention of actually being _caught_ by the man while invading his personal space. Precautions aside, however, getting into the closet was proving more difficult than she had expected and time was growing short.

She had tried every version of every unlocking, unwarding, and unblocking spell she knew, with no success. There was only one option left, and it was a bad idea. Hermione knew it was a bad idea, she knew she would regret it, but…

Steeling herself and taking several steps back, she raised her wand and hissed, "Reducto." The spell whistled through the air with unerring precision and landed dead on, leaving only an uneven hole in the door where the lock had been, the edges still smouldering. With an exultant "Hah!" Hermione reached for the doorknob, wincing as her skin came into contact with the still-hot metal, and wrenched the door open.

As she stepped inside, her mouth dropped open in awe. The professor's collection was easily twice the size of Professor Flitwick's, with bookshelves lining the walls floor to ceiling. She absolutely itched to dive in and explore, but she was there for a reason, that being to raid the collection of books on dark magic she was fairly positive the professor had in his possession. And if she had to hazard a guess, she would bet they were on the bookshelf in the back corner that fairly shimmered with protective wards.

She dismantled the protections easily enough, she had grown rather familiar with her professor's handiwork, and then reached out to trail her fingers reverently over the spines of the books lining the shelves. Unsure where to start, she pulled a book at random from the shelf, paused to think, and then added several more to the growing pile in her arms. It never hurt to be prepared.

* * *

Time passed, still with no sign of the missing Potions master, and found Hermione again sitting and staring, the weight of the knowledge she had gained pressing down upon her. Harry had been right when he had said a blood sacrifice would be necessary, but it was more than that.

It wasn't just the spilling of blood, it was the spilling of _all_ of the blood. Death. Harry had been right this was something she could not do, but…

She needed to talk to Severus, he was a consummate Slytherin, maybe he would have a solution. Any solution. If she came with news, he would have to talk with her, wouldn't he? Even if he were still angry?

Of course, talking to the man would require actually locating him first, and Merlin only knew how she was going to do that. He had been stalking about these dungeons for much longer than she. _Nothing you can do about that, Hermione_, she scolded herself inwardly. _Stop fretting and just go find the man. _

Having goaded herself into action, she rose and left the room, pausing by her lately abandoned makeshift campsite to fetch her robes for added warmth. She wandered the bleak corridors for what seemed like hours, though it very likely wasn't, her frequent casting of _Homenum Revelio_ returning nothing but disappointment.

She had just returned from searching the kitchens for the man and was growing worried when suddenly a loud thunder of sound rolled through the empty hallway. Hermione stopped abruptly, frozen mid-step as the echoes faded away, and then broke into a sudden run.

Her mind racing with thoughts of Severus lying dead beneath a pile of stone or impaled on a tree limb, the witch sprinted through the maze of corridors, hardly pausing as she turned corners to ensure she wasn't rushing headlong into mayhem.

Acting purely on instinct, Hermione made her way as quickly as she could to the now-familiar stairwell. Realizing only just in time that rushing up the stairs with their various twists and turns would be the foolish in the extreme, the witch finally slowed, raising her wand to a defensive position and calling out, "Severus?"

There was no reply, only a sudden burst of cold air, as if the wind was gusting. Filled with an unmistakable sense of foreboding, Hermione began to edge her way up the steps, ready for disaster to strike at any moment.

When she turned the final corner of the stairwell, her breath left her in a rush. Where a carefully erected wall had stood their entire time in the dungeons, protecting them from the outside threat, a hole now gaped, rubble littering the floor and vines already creeping in around the edges. Just outside the gash in the wall stood a huge oak tree, its limbs swaying ominously as if threatening to continue the destruction it had begun to wreak.

The entire scene was enough that it should have struck terror into Hermione's heart but instead she was filled with an overwhelming wash of relief. Relief for, no matter where she looked in the chaotic tableau, there wasn't a single sign of Severus Snape. He may still have been missing, but at least he wasn't dead.

With nothing left to do but try to block the invading plants for a little bit longer and continue her search, Hermione raised her wand, preparing to cast new wards. She had just begun the incantation when a loud yowl echoed up the stairs behind her. She whirled, braced to defend herself against only Circe knew what, just in time for something small to skitter past her feet, closely followed by a familiar orange blur.

"Crookshanks!" She cried out in horror, watching as her cat shot through the new opening in the wall, his bottlebrush tail vanishing in seconds.

Without a single though for her own safety, Hermione scrambled through the hole after her infernal familiar, calling frantically after him as he stalked his pray. Blasting away at the plants that got in her way, each trying to trip, impale, or decapitate her in turn, Hermione chased the creature through the castle, desperate to catch him before he was killed. Though he seemed to be doing a remarkable job avoiding that fate on his own.

Hermione skidded into the courtyard after him, just in time to see her cat sink his razor-sharp claws into a squealing mouse. She was hurrying across the open space to rescue both her cat and hopefully the mouse when something, a noise maybe, or perhaps the glint of sunlight on metal, made her turn her head.

What she saw made her blood freeze in her veins. Standing in the very centre of the courtyard was Severus Snape, a long silver knife clutched in one hand and blood pouring from his opposite forearm, running to fill the wards carved into the stone beneath his feet.

"Severus!" Hermione's cry reverberated through the courtyard and his dark eyes flew up to meet hers, widening in alarm just as the tree limb connected with the back of her head and everything went black.

* * *

"…and Teddy, if you believe it, 'Mione, nearly burnt off little Victoire's eyebrows yesterday. Thought we might have to have Fleur committed after that she was so mad."

"Harry!"

A muttered "ouch" reached her ears as Hermione slowly blinked her eyes open to find out exactly why the Potters were arguing in her bedroom. She squinted; her vision blurred by the harsh light and opened her mouth to speak, frowning when no sound came out.

Clearing her throat slightly, she tried again.

"Shouldn't hit Harry, Gin."

At the slurred sound of her speech, the whispered argument between her best friend and his wife fell silent and she heard rushed footsteps moments before their faces appeared above her, sporting wide, matching grins.

"Hermione!" Harry exclaimed. "You're awake!"

Confused, Hermione nodded, and then winced as the motion sent a sharp pain through the back of her head.

"What…what happened?" She asked blinking blearily to bring their now-worried faces into focus.

"You don't remember?" Harry asked incredulously.

His words earned a daggered glare from the redhead on the opposite side of the bed as she soothed, "There, there, let's just get you some water, you must be thirsty, and I'm sure the Healers will be in any moment."

She cast a meaningful glance at Harry as she spoke, motioning her head towards the door and his eyes widened before he hurried from the room. A frown creased Hermione's brow, she was perturbed by Ginny's avoidance of the question, but she quietly accepted the offered glass of lukewarm water as her mind raced, albeit foggily, to reconcile her memories with her current situation.

She was clearly in St. Mungo's, the abundance of medical equipment crowding her bed made that evident, and in the long-term care ward if the awful peach and mint walls were anything to go by. But why was she there? The last thing she remembered was running through the castle after her cat, and getting to the courtyard and seeing…

"Severus!" She cried, struggling to sit up, only to be gently pressed back down into the pillows by Ginny.

"Hermione, you need to stay calm, you're still not well and–"

"And I've already had to drag you back from the brink of death once this month, Miss Granger, I don't want to do it again."

The rich baritone voice was one that Hermione would know anywhere and her head whipped to the side to see him standing in the doorway, as dark and imposing as ever with the exception of the thick white bandage wrapping his forearm.

"Severus," she whispered in disbelief.

He crossed the room in a few long strides, grasping her hand where it lay on the covers and leaning close, his voice intense as he murmured, "You will _not_ try to die again, Miss Granger."

Her amber eyes locked on his, neither noticing Ginny leaving the room as she searched his expression silently for a long moment.

"But…but you're not dead. Why are you not dead?"

He tutted beneath his breath with a wry quirk of his lips. "So desperate to be rid of me?"

A small smile turned the corners of her mouth. "Not a chance, you dratted man," she whispered, just before pulling his lips down to meet hers.

* * *

**A/N: Only an epilogue to go now!**


	6. When the Hurlyburly's Done

**A/N: Here we are, finally at the end of this little tale. Thank you all so much for your sweet reviews and support over the course of our adventure. Now, without further ado...**

* * *

"Can you believe they're still printing this tripe?" Hermione scoffed as she threw _The_ _Daily Prophet_ down on the table, barely avoiding upsetting a glass of orange juice. "Nearly a year later and it's still 'Ministry efforts this, heroic rescue that'. You'd think by now that rag would have hired someone who actually cares two whits about accurate journalism. Hogwarts is finally going to be a school again, in no small part thanks to you, I might add, and all they can talk about is the glory of their precious Ministry."

"That would be the same Ministry by which you are currently employed, yes?" Her lover's dry tones rose from behind a copy of _The Times_, causing the irate woman to roll her eyes before her features again settled into a scowl.

"It's not funny, Severus," she protested. "After everything you did… you could have _died_ for Merlin's sake, and then–"

A rare indulgent smile curved the man's lips as he interrupted her tirade. "No one was going to die, witch, at least not until you decided to act a typical Gryffindor and commit suicide via a hardwood."

Hermione sniffed primly and arched a brow as she replied, "Yes, well, that tree made a lovely breakfast table, and that's beside the point. If you had bothered to tell me there was some mystical Slytherin solution to the whole mess instead of just gallivanting off…"

Snape smirked as he again raised his paper with a crisp snap of the pages, forgoing a reply.

Hermione let her breath out in a huff and stood to gather their breakfast dishes. As she rounded the table to collect the plate in front of Severus, his dark eyes flicked up to meet hers, his smirk widening, and she stuck her tongue out at him in response, muttering something unflattering under her breath.

As she turned away to tote their mess to the sink, a large hand grabbed her arm and she was tugged into her wizard's lap with a shriek. Before she could say a word, Snape's lips were pressed against hers in a hard, demanding kiss.

He released her after a long moment, chuckling as he took in the slightly dazed look on her face, and pushed her back to her feet with a warning, "Don't stick that tongue out unless you intend to use it, witch."

Severus watched as his witch sashayed across the kitchen, openly admiring the way her muggle jeans shaped her pert arse. It was mornings like this one, quiet, just the two of them in their Inverness flat, that caused him to marvel at the turns his life had taken.

Never had he thought even in the furthest reaches of his imagination that his split-second decision to stay at Hogwarts when the others had all left, it was, after-all, the only true home he had ever known as a child, would lead to his living with, and loving, though he would admit that aloud to very few people, Gryffindor's most famous know-it-all.

In all fairness though, it wasn't as if it had ever been his intention to live with the witch, despite any sort of relationship she insisted on them having, it had simply happened.

The Weasley-Potter wench had somehow managed to manipulate him, something she was inordinately fond of reminding him of, into being the person appointed to stay with Hermione after her release from the hospital, and he had simply never left the flat. It was a passable enough space, once he had convinced the girl to allow him to ward his lab against her beast of a cat.

His expression darkened as his mind drifted back to those first few days of Hermione's recovery, and the events leading up to them. When he had first seen her run into the courtyard that fateful day, it had been all he could do to keep from breaking away in the middle of his ritual and going to strangle her for her carelessness.

Seconds later, his rage had shattered, blown away the moment she had collapsed to the ground, a crimson puddle spreading around her head as blood poured from the gaping wound in her skull.

In that moment, though he wouldn't realize it until later, in those long midnight hours sitting by her hospital bed, his heart had stopped and nothing had mattered other than ensuring that stubborn, insufferable, completely unbearable gem of a witch lived. Not the ritual, not Hogwarts, not even his own life. Only her.

To this day, he didn't know if it was his runic ritual, one that had been passed down in the annals of Slytherin lore, or Hermione's lifeblood that had soaked into the dusty earth of the courtyard that had stopped the destruction of the castle. It had taken him days in fact for him to realize they had even been successful, he hadn't thought to ask while he sat vigil by the woman who slept as if she were dead.

If not for Potter stopping by one afternoon with a copy of the _Prophet_, the front page depicting their triumph in large letters and haunting pictures of withered trees, it might have been weeks before he discovered their success. Not that it had mattered at that particularly dark moment in his life, nor for many weeks after as his witch lingered on without waking.

But that day she had woken, had come back…

"Severus, love, are you alright?"

Her tones jolted him back to his current reality and he looked up to see her standing by the sink, soapy sponge in hand and dripping on the floor, a concerned look marring her pretty features.

His gaze warmed and a smile curved his mouth as he replied, "Perfectly, you insufferable witch."


End file.
